I Think You’re Bonkers

Dino had his full day in school just before his birthday and he came home absolutely shattered  and having done more work in one go than he ever has - but he enjoyed it and is talking about the local kids as being "in my class" with a big grin. The change in him is remarkable and has been noticed by other people too.

School is clearly the right thing for him, for us and for now. I’m feeling better about it all, although I’m really not looking forward to having to get up in the mornings from Sept. 

Mimi is planning lots of baking, painting, colouring and dvd watching for during the school day when she and I are home together. 

This summer, for the first time, I’m letting them both play out at the front of the house - with local kids and on bikes/skateboards etc. I figured that as Dino gets older and as he’s going to be in school with quite a few of them it makes sense for him to get to know them a bit before he goes full time. It seems to be fine, no major issues yet. We’ve had a couple of run ins with some of the boys recently but Dino seems to be holding his own out there, and looking out for Mimi too.

So, while the kids are out at the front of the house I’m pottering about at the back, in my garden… Today the grass got cut, the rose, teasel, buddleia and blackcurrant all got pruned; a flower bed got weeded; the blackcurrant prunings got shoved in some freshly dug soil - in the hope of sprouting more for sharing/next year. Having successfully made jam for the first time a couple of weeks ago I think I can find the space for a third bush for jam making! The apple trees got retied so their support stakes are actually supporting properly and the hens got de-loused, again. We currently have the 2 adult hens and Rainbow is the only one laying at the moment and she’s the one who is literally crawling with lice round her bum. Copper hates being handled and the indignity of being hung upside down by her feet and liberally dusted with "stuff" was more than the poor creature could bare and she let her protest be known, loudly. Rainbow, on the other hand, just sits there and lets me do it for a while. Eventually she gets fed up and makes a break for it so I have to hold on tight and work fast, but she’s easier. The lice will need keeping an eye on and will need re-treating in a day or so, again.

Certainly feels like it with warm, sunny, blue skies…..

I got some Autumn planting onion sets, they should have gone in the ground in October and over-wintered but I didn’t bother with much over winter planning so didn’t get any until I saw an offer on some online…. So, my onion sets arrived yesterday and the instruction was to get them in the ground as soon as possible - so as the sun is shining and the sky is blue today - even if the ground is hard and cold - we turned over a smallish area of one of the Bramble patch beds and stuck in 24 onions. I hope they grow! I want some red onions to go alongside them now, I love red onions….

We had quite a discussion about how some things need to be outside through the winter so they can grow properly - like the garlic which is showing nicely and looking good. It doesn’t look quite as good as last year but it’s still going to be a good crop I think. 

We pottered about, tidied up a bit out there and threw the hens a bucket of weeds to pick over, which they seemed to like. Didn’t stay outside long as it’s bitterly cold and we were starting to get chilled despite coats, scarves and gloves.

Both kids are getting their set "sitting-down-work" done each day, although I called a halt early today and they are each short one piece of work because they both have horrendous colds and can’t concentrate properly. We’ll get back to that when they’re feeling better - but I’m not dropping it completely, they need to learn that some things just need to be done.

This morning we got up early and headed out to the local cinema to see the Spiderwick Chronicles, which was fun and it’s a good family film as long as you don’t have a kid that’s easily scared or overly sensitive. Freddie Highmore is fab as the twins and the creatures are ace - we liked Hogsqueal best…. The local cinema has a kids thing on a Sat morning where all tickets are £1 for those 2 films - think we may well go back depending what is on!

After that, and sort of taking a roundabout route home, we popped into Focus for paint and after some food I painted the bathroom - it’s now uneven blue rather than uneven dirty magnolia with torn paper. It needs another coat, which will help with the unevenness, and there’s enough in the tin to do that in a couple of days, or when I remember and get round to it. I found a couple of things to go on the wall too and that helps liven it up a bit, but we will be getting a bigger mirror for in there soon.

While the paint was drying we spent an hour or so weeding in the garden and discussing many many things - such as why some people don’t want to live with other people, why the cabbage whites can smell broccoli a mile off, how the flowers in the garden are attracting more varied wildlife now and pondering whether the chickens will like the sunflower heads to peck at, and if they’ll be brown or grey, or what…..  Lost all the broccoli after the shelter got torn and they were all covered in caterpillars, bleurgh.

Pumpkin measuring: Mine is 16cms tall and 50cms girth, Kids is 12cms tall and 48cms girth. I have some pics, and more garden pics but I’ll have to tinker and upload later.

I have six 4 foot fence posts in my garden. They were used to support fence panels when we fenced off the bramble patch and they’re still there, with the metal seat/spike things we used on the bottom - we didn’t concrete them in. One fence panel is still in place but it could go quite easily.

I’m pondering what to do with the garden next year and wondering if 6 fence posts might just be the basis for a nice sized chook pen? They’ll need digging out and reseating where we want them, which is behind the shed and we’ll need chicken wire or something to attach to them and a coop/chook house too. Oh and a couple of chooks and feed, and whatever else they need…. But the beginnings of an idea is there for getting ready for a couple of hens.  Maybe.

Next year the bramble patch is being given over to squashes - whatever we choose to grow but pumpkins are definitely on the list! Might try a butternut, might try some decorative gourd types.

We’re all learning lots about plant care this year. Melon’s HATE the wind and die, but shelter them and they’re fine. Mine last surviving melon is in the cold frame and doing well although I think it’s now way too late for fruit. But the lesson is learned and next year they go straight under cover and stay there. Broccoli on the other hand likes to be beaten! Yes, literally. Mine is in a shelter to keep the cabbage whites off it and was making loads of leaves (threatening to escape!) and no broccoli, until *someone* came and battered it. Now it’s making broccoli. Oh, and slug pellets are good. No, not the nasty evil ones, but some I found labelled "Certified for organic use." Otherwise I get to grow bugger all past seedling stage.  

Now we love broccoli but hate finding caterpillars in it, so it needs some protection but sprays are out of the question. So this year I got my little plant shelter and figured that’d be fine. It’s kind of done ok, but I have problems with the damp and slugs in therem and it’s plastic and it’s got torn so I can’t use it next year. So. I’m thinking mini fruit cage type thing? A set of posts/poles with a smallish holed net/mesh over them to keep the cabbage whites off but still lets sun, rain and wind in. It wouldn’t have to be big enough to walk into like a fruit cage, but I’d have to be able to get in - which is why I’m thinking netting so it can be lifted like the plastic on the cloche. It also won’t rip so easily or kite away.

Oh and I’m after a greenhouse but I have to figure out where to put it and how to fix one into place…..

Big plans, now watch me not do any of it! Although the kids are now happily digging out the posts as they really really want chickens. 

Blight, probably, I’ve never seen it before. Bugger.

There’s one plant unaffected, just one. Tis a bugger and I’m learning all about how to cope with blighted spud plants now - DO NOT compost, not even in the green bin…… *mutter, grumble*

It was at the end of the carrots, tucked away at the back of the shelter/cloche, which incidenmtally I’ve had to take apart today in an effort to lift it up a bit as the broccoli are threatening to escape ….. I think the pepper in there might be thinking about flowering?

Anyway, the carrot label says "Carrot, Purple Dragon, 25/5" So they were sown at the end of May and pulled at just about big enough to eat this week - 2 months(ish), not bad going. They could have done with longer to get bigger but we’re just impatient. Also dug up a few more spuds and shoved in a sprouting one from the larder in the hope that it might grow - that’s three I’ve done like that and you never know, we might just get a second crop in late autumn. Some of this lot of spuds are actually quite large and we’re not eating that many each week so this crop should keep us keep us going for ages, probably most of the summer.

Peas are coming on nicely and so are the first baby pumpkins - I just hope there’s enough summer for them to grow and ripen properly.

Education - Both kids did reading and writing this morning and I want to do some work on BIG numbers with Dino later, but lunch first I think….

The clouds are coming over grey and threatening now but it’s been dry so far today. So we’ve spent the morning in the garden where we pottered about, planted out more carrots, replaced a spud that we dug up yesterday, cut back the overgrown chard, found a beetroot and discussed why the comfrey in the bucket has completely disintegrated and the water is now blown and really really stinky!

Dino and his very own beetroot, which he wants for tea tonight.

Broccoli, carrots, pepper, dill and celery (possibly some lettuce in there too) all doing brilliantly in my little cloche/shelter thing from Lidl. I’ll be on the look out for another one for next year as it’s really protected the plants from pests and weather.

Sunflowers - galloping up the fence and in need of tying in for support I think, maybe tomorrow. There are the first signs of flowers coming on these.

My buddleia, no flowers this year but the growth is fantastic so I’m hoping for flowers and insects next year.

Pumpkin comp…..

Mine:

Those flowers are male but there could be the first baby pumpkin under the leaves, it’s very very tiny.

The kids:

Again, a male flower but no sign of baby pumpkins yet.

We’re loving the garden this year and learning loads about seasons, growing plants, what’s edible and what we like as well as ecosystems and beneficial wildlife.

If it stays dry I’m going to sow some more carrots in loo roll inners - just stand them on end in something, fill with compost and put a couple of carrot seeds at the top, cover with a bit of compost. Then keep dampish and ignore until they come up. Then express much excitement at baby seedlings and keep damp, while waiting impatiently for proper leaves. Then when they’re almost too big for the tubes and the cardboard is actually almost too soggy to handle without it falling to bits, go and frantically dig over a random bit of garden, stick them in so soil covers the top of what’s left of the tube and sprinkle with organic slug pellets (or slug deterrent of choice - it’s incredibly disheartening to find the tops of tubes and no carrots!) Treat with a combination of ignore and impatience until not really big enough to pull up and then pull and eat. Yummm!

A few red/purple carrots (Dragon), small but the rest can carry on growing a bit, a few very very tiny orange carrots (chantenay) a pile of spuds (kestrel I think - some for tonight and some for tomorrow) then at the end there’s a heap of dill, some to just eat and some to dry if I can.

Any tips on drying dill? Oh and there were a handful of peas but we seem to have eaten them. The purple carrots are the first carrots I’ve ever grown successfully here and that’s thanks to the loo roll tip I got from the Downsizer forums. The loo roll inners are all but gone and the carrots are just WONDERFUL!

An update since we started gropwing things in this post! 

In my plant shelter/cloche I have:

Three sorts of broccolli… 

Two sorts of carrot - purple and orange, dill, pepper and celery….

My pumpkin and those sunflowers, and a squash of some sort (crown prince I think) and some courgettes in the distance….

Veg bed behind the shed - Peas, chard, carrot, celery, beetroot and some salad leaves just coming up.

My apple tree - this is the Cox’s and we’re down to three apples now - but it’s only young and small.

Mimi’s garden - Lavatera, sweet peas, 3 short rows of carrots, a pumpkin, some strawberries and possibly some nasturtiums.

Dino’s patch: A potato, come carrots, beetroot, peas, cress (because he wanted to see what the proper plant looks like) and some strawberries. There’s a pumpkin and some chard in there too but they’re hiding under the potato!

And finally my spud patch and that lovely ex-bramble patch that is producing a crop for the first time since we moved in when Dino was 18 months old.

I’m very pleased.